DeSoto Reviews

The Silver Desoto is an excellent book about a young girl who is caught between the small-time life during the depression and the Hollywood - characters she worships. Vividly portrayed are the people and friends she knows who are in high school and the lost loves and the consequences that occur.

If you can get this book, read this book. It is worth it!

An unforgettable journey into adulthood...rich with a sense of place and an understanding of human nature. A beautifully cut gem displaying a cameo of life during the depression years...there is humor...earthiness...irony.
We feel our own lives enlarged, deepened, matured as I read this book. Sometimes funny, always honest, and often deeply moving book.

THIS AUTHUR IS A GREAT WRITER.THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST WORKS I'VE EVER READ.IV'E READ IT TEN TIMES.FROM START TO FINISH,A RIVETING STORY WITH GOOD SOLID CHARACTERS AND A GREAT PLOT WITH GREAT SUB PLOTS.TREMENDOUS DIALOGUE THROUGHOUT AND A GREAT GREAT ENDING.THERE IS TREMENDOUS CLIMAX FOR THE GREAT ENDING.IT DOES NOT TURN OUT THE WAY YOU THINK.THE SITUATIONS PRESENTED RELATE TO OUR OWN SOCIETY IN MANY WAYS.THE LOVE STORIES ARE WELL DONE.ITS JUST A BOOK I REALLY ENJOYED READING.OVER AND OVER.THERES JUST SOMTHING ABOUT IT.ALMOST LIKE YOU WISH YOU COULD EXPERIANCE WHAT THE PEOPLE WERE GOING THROUGH.LIKE HOW WOULD I HANDLE THAT SITUATION AND THAT EXPERIANCE WOULD BE INTERESTING.ALL THE HUMAN EMOTIONS AND EVILS ARE THERE,LOVE ,HATE,GREED,ENVY AND GOOD QUALITIES,KINDNESS,GENTLENESS. THIS BOOK WILL BE A BEST SELLER. BUY IT

This book is hilarious, and the art is perfect. If you like Dave Barry, but love the west, this book is unmatched and unmatchable by anything else I have seen. The publisher is the same one that did "Don't Squat With Your Spurs On," but this is a better read. My sixty-year-old father-in-law, who is not easy to please, about rolled out of his chair Christmas night reading it. It's short, it's cheap, and you can't shoot wrong wth this one.

I didn't realize that this little book was published by the National Park Service until coming to the end, where there is a section of brief descriptions and photos of a few of our national parks named after early explorers. These include deSoto National Memorial in Florida, Coronado National Memorial in Arizona, Pecos National Historical Park in New Mexico, and Cabrillo National Monument in California.

The first part of the book is a synopsis of the explorations of these conquistadores, all from Spain, who searched the New World for riches, in particular, gold. What they encountered were Native Americans, some friendly, some ferocious. Although the Spaniards suffered physically through hardships of difficult terrain, shortage of food, and battles with natives, they also inflicted injustices on the native peoples.

This book offers a brief but important understanding of the history behind the names of places we often take for granted. It is the history of the U.S. before the English arrived and created the colonies. The Spanish were here first, and as maps show in this book, traversed much of the land. Unfortunately for the Spanish, they were disheartened about the lack of gold, and did not pursue its other natural resources. How different the U.S. might have been if they had not given up.

This little publication deserves a 5 for fulfilling its purpose of bringing awareness to the history that created these national parks. It can serve as a springboard for other research, as well as create interest in including these sites in one's vacation plans.

Doctor De Soto is a dentist and a mouse. He does very good work and is especially liked by the big animals. Doctor De Soto accepts all animals except those dangerous to mice. He and his wife (who just happens to be his assistant) always check before letting in a patient to make sure the patient is not dangerous.

One day a fox came to the door. Doctor De Soto was reluctant to let him in but did because he couldn't stand to see the pain the poor fox was in because of a rotten tooth. Doctor De Soto gives the fox some gas to put him to sleep while he pulls out the tooth. When the fox wakes up Doctor De Soto tells him to come back the next day so that he can put in a new tooth.

That night both De Soto and his wife are worried that the fox will eat Doctor De Soto when he comes back the next day, so they come up with a plan and outfox the fox.

The illustrations are bright and colorful and the style is bold and straightforward. There are several more books about Doctor De Soto, even if they aren't all sold here.

Loggie-log-log-log

Like taking a trip back in time to the Hawaii we all wish remained. A vacation without the jetlag. Fantastic resource for graphic designers, artists and a wonderful gift for anyone who loves Hawaii. Full color photos throughout are fantastic.

Keep 'em Reading Bulletin Boards: Year-Round Designs For The Library And Classroom is a remarkably easy to use book of bulletin boards to promote reading among children from kindergarten through grade 8. Each bulletin board pattern shows friendly creatures enjoying books, such as a smiling monkey who reads while hanging from his tail. The 20 suggested patterns include boards for everyday use and boards for seasonal occasions, and these patterns can be mixed and matched as needed. With many large and small pieces designed to be easily traced, display recommendations, and suggested activities to help get children thinking, Keep 'em Reading Bulletin Boards is a superb addition to any elementary school library reference shelf.

OUTSTANDING ANALYSIS OFFERED BY TOP THINKERS WITHIN THE FIELD KNOWN AS LAW AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. EDGARDO BUSCAGLIA'S AND H. DE SOTO'S PIECES CAPTURE THE ESSENCE EXPLAINING THE LINKS BETWEEN THE JUDICIARY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. MORE OF BUSCAGLIA'S WORK SHOULD BE PUBLISHED BY THE IDB.

I agree that this book would have been more interesting if read before Mystery, but now the mystery is gone.

This is good stuff just the same.

Lots of good points that are useful in a classroom.

The original version of this book was written in the mid-80's to offer the people and government of Peru specific suggestions to combat Sendero Luminoso by making it possible for ordinary people to have a productive and meaningful participation in the nation's economy. This new printing includes a preface written in 2002 that provides the context and history for non-Peruvian readers and gives some analysis of the successes of the suggested reforms under the Fujimori government.

The first part of the book is a detailed analysis of three sectors of the Peruvian economy: housing, transport, and trade (small manufacturing and retail primarily). In each of these, De Soto demonstrates how the barriers raised by regulation and legal process from both right and left wing governments in Peru have forced the majority of persons participating to do so in informal/illegal ways. The result is that formal activity bears the brunt of taxation and informals have little protection in terms of property rights, contractual instruments, and so on. The net result is that everyone is impoverished. This section of the book can be tough reading because of the amount of detail, but its necessary in order to understand the importance of the second half.

The second half suggests that the Peruvian situation is really the reemergence of mercantilism, not a market economy. De Soto then provides some suggestions to peacefully transitiont to a market economy, and convincing warnings that failure to do so will almost certainly result in a violent transition.

The points that De Soto makes are increasingly significant to non-Peruvians as societies like America have increasingly centralised economies. Ironically, the cover includes blurbs from both Presidents Bush and Clinton. One suspects that netiher of them actually read the book.

I enjoyed this book but was spoiled because I first read "The Mystery of Capital" and then this. This book's stats are somewhat outdated because so much has happened in the last 15-20 years, which takes away from the crispness of the argument, but the argument is still apparent and sound. Although I agree that eliminating government red tape to let more people become a part of the economic system and therefore become plugged into the benefits of the system (eg, a legal work address for customers to reach you at, legal recognition so to advertise, etc.) and thereby allow government to collect more taxes so to (hopefully) put more money toward fighting social problems; I hope de Soto agrees that the economic answer to terroism is not the only answer. Stregthening the economic infrastructure is a strong part of the answer, but much more is also needed for some people to not desire to kill other people, and that may be something which can never be had. Although I would say "The Mystery of Capital" is a must read, this is nonetheless a great supplement to "The Mystery of Capital".

"The Mystery Of Capital" is a text on development economics and the history of economic thought. It addresses development economics by analyzing roles played by incentives and institutions in shaping the evolution of markets in third world countries. In addition, it addresses the development of economic thought by demonstrating how the notion of capital evolved in the West to encompass incentives for transforming property into productive assets over time. In doing this, de Soto seeks to provide a solution to the dilemma haunting the third world: how to create a system of rules to put the proper economic incentives in place while respecting existing institutions that currently drive economic behavior.

In the book, de Soto argues that it is the inability to produce capital, rather than a lack of respect for private property or the rule of law per se, which inhibits rapid economic growth in the third world. He notes there is a difference between protecting property rights and producing capital. Specifically, he states that over time in the West, mechanisms were developed within systems of property rights to produce capital very quickly. He asserts that many westerners are oblivious to these mechanisms, and that they "...view them as parts of the system that protects property, not as interlocking mechanisms for fixing the economic potential of an asset in such a way that it can be converted into capital."

He defines property as a mediating device that captures and stores the mechanisms necessary to run a market economy. He states that it "...seeds the system by making people accountable and assets fungible, by tracking transactions, and so providing all the mechanisms required for the monetary and banking system to work and for investment to function." He relates the idea of property to capital by pointing out that - rather than a mere representation of assets on paper - it is a process through which a society extracts value from those assets. Therefore, property is not the assets themselves but an expression of how those assets should be used.

From this, de Soto develops his theory of how the West grew rich. He argues that American property systems flourished because they incorporated legal rights to allow people to use their property to create capital. He lists occupancy, preemption, homesteading, miners' laws, and other mechanisms for bringing informal property rights into the legal arena as examples of how Western systems created a new economic order providing the right incentives for massive growth to occur. He believes this evolution occurred under America's legal umbrella rather than Britain's because America's system responded to shifting political attitudes more quickly than Britain's - where the common law had entrenched a static system hostile to extralegal notions of property.

These extralegal notions of property are crucial, de Soto notes, because they dominate most economic transactions in the third world. He points out that with their formal economies so heavily regulated, black markets are the only systems available to most third world residents. As a result, most businesses in the third world incur heavy visible costs in the form of paying bribes, making payments outside legal channels, and operating through dispersed networks without a source of credit. However, the largest costs - which are invisible - are the absence of institutions necessary to create incentives for people to raise investment funds, achieve economies of scale, or protect their innovations in the marketplace.

Thus, de Soto argues, the problem with most proposals to establish property rights and the rule of law is that they ignore existing black market institutions that already guide economic activity in third world countries. He explains that when new legal institutions are created, those institutions must embrace contracts and arrangements that exist under the black market, or they will be rejected over time. He believes the solution is for reformers to codify black market rules so they can be made uniform within individual countries. Thus, leaders can compare these rules to other newly proposed frameworks and create an individual set that best enables them to create a system that is legitimate and self-enforceable over time.

De Soto's book sheds important light on many of the problems inherent in development economics. His insights into the evolution of market institutions to provide incentives for people to both protect their property and use it productively explain many of the frustrations experienced by officials at international aid agencies and third world governments. These leaders would do well to heed his advice.

The Mystery of Capital attempts to explain the reasons why a capitalist system has not favored all people in third world nations in the same degree. Although Hernando de Soto focuses primarily in urban areas, he explains that there are far too many, if not difficult, obstacles for most citizens of third world countries to truly benefit from a capitalistic system. He has research poor neighborhoods in third world nations, and has found plenty of dead capital that could be put to use for the benefit of all people in such nations, if only politicians and lawmakers realize the enormous potential. Apparently, the value of property and extralegal businesses are far greater than the aggregate value of decades of foreign direct investments into those third world countries researched. Such assets are considered dead capital because they have been obtained or developed extralegally. Buildings and businesses exist, but they were not properly registered with the corresponding authorities, and in most cases developed in Government-owned land. A seemingly vibrant extralegal economy goes unnoticed. Why? The level of bureaucracy is overbearing, and therefore it becomes expensive for most people to go through the necessary steps for property establishing a business.

Hernando de Soto does not give you a definite method as to how to unlock "hidden capital", but it does give guidelines for developing a meaningful way to turn such unregistered assets into capital; the basis of a capitalistic system. He also offers some history as to how this kind of predicament was tackled by lawmakers in developed nations such as the United States and England. By using history, Hernando de Soto attempts to fill in the gap between theory and reality.

Hernando de Soto's ideas cannot and should not be ignored. This book will open many eyes to the nature of capital. The author suggests a radically simple yet enormously challenging way of bringing the world's impoverished billions onto the track of capitalism and development: give them legal property rights to what they "own." The author's intriguing case is that a lack of property rights - not a lack of entrepreneurial zeal or competence - stymies development in the former East Bloc and Third World countries. This seemed to be a shockingly original notion when the author first propounded it in his bestseller The Other Patch, and it still does. If the book has a flaw, we warn, it is that the author's undisguised missionary ardor sometimes makes one wonder whether he is merely a zealot. Even if he were one, the book would merit reading.